Fidelity Wars #36: Sonic Rush Adventure – “Hidden Island”

The super fast hedgehog Sonic made his debut in 1991 on Sega’s Mega Drive video game console, giving Nintendo’s mascot Super Mario a run for his money. Sonic spawned a number of successful sequels, loved by both fans and critics, until the games took a big dive in quality once the developers started dabbling with 3D. The more recent Sonic games have been panned by critics, but consumers seem to like the character enough for the games to actually sell well, despite low overall review scores. There has been the odd genuinely decent Sonic game among the newer ones though, namely the non-3D games for the handheld consoles, and this week’s track is from the Nintendo DS game Sonic Rush Adventure.

The music from the first Sonic game is still a favourite among video game fans, and I’m definitely a fan of its score as well – although a casual one. I’ve tried idly looking into the scores of the newer games, but haven’t found anything that’s really grabbed me. Then I heard that Sonic Rush Adventure was supposed to have pretty good music, so I gave the soundtrack a try.

While I wasn’t blown away by it, it did have a handfull of decent tunes, of which this was the best. It’s an instrumental version of the title track, I’m guessing it’s used on the Hidden Island level(s?) judging by its name, and it has a nice tropical video game groove to it. Perfect for your 16-bit retro Summer.